Pitcher's Mound (my first)

The baseball field our local high school uses is being renovated. I am doing some of the work. This week we roughed in the new pitchers mound and batters boxes. It was difficult to find widespread agreement on the procedures and methods. Although this was my first mound built from scratch, I have maintained and repaired others. In the end, how it was done is based on what I have seen on other fields, what I have read or been told, the existing conditions and parameters of the job, and the materials available in our area.

The mound as we found it:

For context. Cleaned up old mound in context of tilled infield.

After shooting all the elevations, we roughed in and shaped the area where the clay bricks would go

Naturally, the rough in area will hold water until bricks are in and finish grade established

Just to be safe, I put in a smile drain at the front and back edges of mound
The school had about 3 dozen old bricks, we put those on the bottom layer
I made this mound gauge that made the job easier and, probably, better The landing area is two bricks deep
Building and following the slope one brick deep
All of the heavy use area in front of the rubber is three bricks deep

I am still learning myself. Yes, unfired clay bricks are what I used - 435 so far and I need about 90 more to finish the other batter's box. In all of the reading I did and the little bit of repair work I have done with mound clay, this seemed like the best way to go. Based on how many times some of them had to be reset to get everything right, I now know working with bagged clay would have been tougher.

Great job! If that infield has an automated irrigation system, you might want to consider getting a tarp for the mound so it doesn't end up washing out.

Click to expand...

Thank you. I am happy with it as a first try. Irrigation was put in last week but will probably not be live for one more week. We are looking at tarp options now and definitely plan to cover the mound and plate. My take on tarps is that they help keep mositure in as well as out. Both are important, but I have some things to learn about the specifics.

When we built the mound at my school used clay and tamps. I felt like dying. the guide is also a good little tool I need to get a picture of ours. It is like that only it has little 1x1s that gradually get smaller hard to explain with out a picture.